What Is Network Orchestration?

What are the benefits of network orchestration?

Network orchestration delivers the following benefits:

• It has a brain: the network controller. The controller translates business needs into network requirements, sets up the network to deliver on those requirements, and monitors it to help ensure that business needs are being met.
• It views the network as a whole and not as individual parts.
• It synchronizes all parts of the network to help achieve objectives.

Why do you need network orchestration?

Most organizations depend on their networks to help run their businesses. Besides connecting diverse users and IoT (Internet of Things) devices, the networks carry data all around the enterprise, manage resources and applications in data centers and clouds, and help to secure all elements against threats. And since business needs change—sometimes quickly—networks should respond quickly and inexpensively.

It's clear that networks expected to do so much are getting more and more difficult to manage. 

Any substantial change needs to be reflected in multiple areas. As an example, a seemingly simple objective to set up a new user can require modifications to a lot of switches, routers, firewalls, AAA servers, etc. These changes enable the user to be properly authenticated and authorized and set up with appropriate application-access levels. 

Deploying a new application in the public cloud may also require many tasks. The tasks might include dynamically acquiring compute, storage, and network resources in the cloud, provisioning software-defined WAN (SD-WAN) to provide quality of service (QoS) suited to the application's traffic, and configuring switches and access points to enforce access rights. 

With proper orchestration, the network can accomplish such complex steps without missing a beat.

Who needs network orchestration?

As a rule, organizations with 20 or more network devices or 250 or more users can benefit from network orchestration.

Growing organizations that are adding users and IoT devices, hosting a diverse set of users with distinct needs, or using rigorous security requirements for data protection should explore how network orchestration can help them achieve their objectives.

Organizations that have employees who travel frequently, host applications in their data centers, use applications from the public cloud, or experience frequent changes to their networks should also investigate how network orchestration can help them.

How does network orchestration work?

Before the days of software-defined networking (SDN) and network automation, all network setup was done manually. Today, of course, manual setup is impossible. Instead, organizations use network controllers and programmable network devices that can systematically execute what's required.

Network controllers are built to orchestrate this execution. They have intimate knowledge of the network's configuration, architecture, infrastructure elements, users and their devices, and traffic patterns. Controllers that follow the intent-based networking model allow input of business objectives that they translate into network actions that they orchestrate.

How is network orchestration different from network automation?

Network automation refers to performing discrete, fairly simple tasks without manual intervention. Examples of automation include uploading a new configuration file to a switch and updating the switch's software image—jobs that each achieve a single objective. 

Orchestration refers to performing a series of related tasks to achieve a more-complex objective. A network controller executes automated tasks in a purposeful order and verifies the success of each task before performing the next one.

As an example, orchestrating a new wireless SSID might consist of identifying and reconfiguring the appropriate access points and wireless LAN controllers, and setting up proper credentials, security mechanisms, allowed bandwidth, etc., for the SSID.

How is network orchestration different from network management?

Network management refers to functions for administering and operating networks. A central network management system, usually the network controller, uses its automation and orchestration capabilities to perform these functions. In other words, network orchestration is a subset of network management.